Dose of reality from O'Leary

By Nick Cafardo

Since his baseball career ended after the 2003 season, Troy O'Leary has enjoyed the fruits of earning more than $16 million in his career. There has been lots of time on the golf course, dad time with his children, and teaching kids baseball in the Phoenix suburbs.

About two years ago, however, he had a thought, born mostly out of frustration from not being able to land a friend a job in baseball and all of the negativity surrounding baseball's steroid scandal. He realized that baseball, even with all of its extensive scouting, might be missing the occasional diamond in the rough.

So he began thinking about a concept for a baseball TV reality series. Month by month, it started to get more creative and involved. He added associates in Alexandra Athanasopoulos and Mike Pearson. He got ex-players and friends like Reggie Jefferson, Mike Stanley, Darren Lewis, John Valentin, Jeff Cirillo, and Rafael Naboa to commit to roles. He received guidance from Reds manager Dusty Baker and from former agent and current special adviser to the White Sox Dennis Gilbert.

Now O'Leary, 39, is ready to become the Simon Cowell of baseball on a show called "Play Big or Go Home."

"My dad John told me, 'If you don't try this, you'll regret it the rest of your life,' " said O'Leary, who played 11 years in the majors, six with Boston. "I had the idea and I knew what I wanted to do, but my dad gave me the push to follow through with it and explore it.

"We're ready now to sell it. It's taken two years of a lot of work to really get it the way we want it and to condense the concept so people will understand it."

The concept starts with baseball players preferably aged 18-22 sending O'Leary videos of them in action. O'Leary will evaluate them and select 15 players from the East, Midwest, and West regions. When he's whittled them down, that's when the judging and voting begins.

According to Athanasopoulos, an IT professional for Wells Fargo in Chandler, Ariz., the show will incorporate a human element, with stories of the players' lives and backgrounds - even "love stories." O'Leary and a panel of judges, likely made up of ex-players, will determine whether they continue or pack up and go home. O'Leary's goal is "to find the five-tool player and to get them an invite to a major league spring training camp."

The final 15 players - five from each region - will come together on a field in Arizona for the final competition. There will be judging, just as there is on "American Idol" and "Dancing With the Stars," as well as Internet and text voting. O'Leary and his associates are hoping the series will run 12-16 episodes per year.

"We're hoping to attract more than the diehard baseball fan," said Athanasopoulos. "We're hoping to attract the casual fan and also entice them with the human-interest side of their story."

O'Leary said he's not interested in the thirtysomething player who's trying to get back into baseball or make it for the first time. What he wants is a young player who has slipped through the cracks of major league scouting.

O'Leary said his friend, Dennis Barker, was that type of player, ideal for the show. A player who had, in O'Leary's opinion, a nice swing that could have been developed into something big.

"I'm just trying to put a positive spin on baseball," said O'Leary. "There's been so much negativity with the steroids. Baseball's been viewed in such a negative light.

"This is all positive. It's the chance for kids to chase their dreams. I'm hoping to get a good, positive response from baseball teams and the hope is they'll give these kids a chance. We're not guaranteeing anything but a major league spring training invitation or a chance to play in an independent league.

"Some of them, just because nobody's heard of them or because they didn't show up on a scout's radar, or maybe because they went to a small college that wasn't scouted, they're not given the chance to even get their foot in the door."

O'Leary said he has turned down opportunities in baseball to scout or coach, that he was very content to spend time with his family and teach kids in the area how to play baseball. But this project has him hooked, and he's ready to pitch it to the networks.

"We believe in the show and the concept," he said. "We believe people will watch and it will be interesting. It combines baseball and life. It shows you how much a kid will do to make it. How much they'll do for that one shot to live their dream."

~~~~~~~~~~~

I think it would be interesting. Im a diehard baseball fan so ill watch just about anything with baseball but if people will watch that reality crap on VH1 then i beleive this would get some veiwers.

The only other reality baseball show i can think of was a show called "The show" that aired on mojo HD on comcast a couple of years ago. It was about the triple A affilate of the Diamondback the Tuscon Sidewinders. It mostly concentrded on a few players such as Chris young and Carlos Quentin. There was a few others who never really stuck in the bigs. It mostly gave you an idea of the life of a minor leaguer and what they go through day in and day out.